Friday, 27 February 2015

IX. Adventures of M. Deslon

Half of these were in Arthur John Butler's translation, but it would have been ridiculously short if I had just stuck to those that weren't.

Like my father, M. Deslon was a native of the Vosges, where his
family was settled.

On the way back from Besançon, where he had obtained his doctorate
in medicine, he found himself in a public coach with a young officer
and a Capucin. As soon as the journey started, the officer started to
mock the clergyman and harassed him for the whole day. M. Deslon had
started to smile at some of his barbs, but soon they bored him, and
in the end they disgusted him; finally, half a league away from the
place where they would part, M. Deslon, having exhausted his
patience, could remain silent no longer, and he told the Capucin:

“By God, Father, I have to say you are full of composure!”

“What,” the officer interjected, “does that mean you lack it?”

“Had I been the insulted one, this would have ended long ago!”

“Then there is no time to lose”, the officer replied, slapping
him across the face.

They stopped the carriage. The two fighters stepped down, drew their
swords, and in a matter of minutes, M. Deslon, who was both brave and
agile and had just won a fencing prize in Besançon, inflicted a
fatal wound. His opponent, who was enjoying his first furlough, was
half a league away from his family home; he only arrived there to
die, after declaring that he had been in the wrong and demanding that
they do not sue M. Deslon. The unfortunate victor was appalled by
this whole affair, and whenever he was reminded of it, he repeated:
“After twelve hours of patience, I only had to wait for fifteen
more minutes, and I will forever remain inconsolable that I could not
endure it long enough.”

After finishing his provincial medicine studies with much
distinction, M. Deslon pursued them in Paris; one of the courses he
attended was M. Petit’s. One day as this learned anatomist
demonstrated to his students that hanging provoked the most intense
pleasure, M. Deslon, who had become one of M. Petit’s favourite
pupils, asked:

“But, Monsieur, since you are by no means an enemy of delights, how
come you have not yet experienced this one?”

“My friend,” M. Petit answered, “I save it for last.”

One day, M. Deslon persuaded my father to accompany him at an anatomy
lecture; my father was ill for the rest of the day. He avenged
himself by taking Deslon to watch Le Médecin malgré
lui. It was a comical scene. Deslon was furious to see his
honourable profession being thus satirised. With each line, he
exclaimed: “What a load of nonsense!”, and with each exclamation,
my father burst into laughter.

When my father got married, Deslon, as one of his witnesses, stood
near him; he leant close to his ear and said: “My friend... my
friend... it is still time, run!... For Heaven’s sake, run away!”
And once my father said yes, he changed his mantra: “Ah! my poor
friend,” he exclaimed, “now, hang yourself!”

Despite his regrets after his first duel, M. Deslon was about to
fight another one in Paris. He had not provoked it, but his
stubbornness and vehemence in this quarrel seemed to make
reconciliation impossible. A few friends, having failed to appease
him, at least got him to agree that the fight would be postponed to
the next day and they went to see my father, who ran to Deslon’s
place at once; but the doctor, having shut himself in, received
nobody. Then my father wrote him a long letter which M. Deslon still
quoted as a masterpiece of reason and strength of persuasion
twenty-two years later; it ended with this conclusion: that in this
circumstance, Deslon fighting the duel would only be thoughtless or
cruel. This letter struck him, and the reflections it inspired him
enabled him to resolve the dispute peacefully.

He was offered an appealing marriage with a beautiful young woman who
seemed very much in love with him. Everything had been arranged, the
date was set, but he happened to witness a quarrel between the bride
and her governess; the young lady was in the wrong, but she grew
stubborn, imperious and harsh. M. Deslon concluded that she lacked
intelligence; seeing no possible happiness without this quality, he
broke off the engagement. Despite both families’ attempts to sway
him, he remained adamant, and the young lady died of despair.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Pages

Who am I?

A few words to get started...

This blog will be a repository of texts from a particular era of French history. Not just the Empire, though, obviously there will be some (well, hopefully, a lot of) spillover into the French Revolution and the Restoration, perhaps all the way to the July Monarchy. But the years 1804-1815 will be the pivot of most of the works I would like to feature here.

I am no writer. At best, I am a translator, and an amateur one at that. But considering the sheer amount of memoirs from that era that were not translated into English, or at least, aren't available in fully free versions like the originals, I figured this would be useful for some, so there I am, trying to fill in the blanks in the material available for English-speakers with a passing interest in Napoleonic history.

Unless stated otherwise, I got all of my material from Gallica, and I do not intend to use it for any commercial purpose, so hopefully all will be well and fine regarding legal matters.